Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.

Friday, August 22, 2008

"In New York, some Apple fans were miffed that the first people waiting in line for the iPhone 3G were activists hoping to stir up publicity for a cause. But don't you think they would've been even more ticked off if those first spots in the line were taken up by paid actors?"

If you are an Apple "fan" you don't have much bragging rights or the ability to be miffed. You already got punked, miffed and what not.

So, now a woman in Alabama is suing apple. Indians are making fun of a phone that costs $700 and is behind other Indian phones in technology!!! And..the company behaves like a teenager refusing to admit exactly what it is that their updates do...to their own customers!

Here is a slogan I am ready to give away for anyone who wants to start an Apple "Fan" Club:

"We put the i in iDIOT"

Apple Fan? Want to retaliate?

Only emails sent from "My new 3G iPhone" will be accepted. (Or come stand in front of my house for 36 hours and yell)

Like, they are ever going to get here...on time, or before eternity itself ends!

Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Alternate Title: The World does a 'Microsoft', only Microsoft does better...

First Read This:

" "Dear MS Outlook," Owen Schultz wrote, "I am so sorry about our breakup several years ago. I have been thinking about you a lot since then. Will you please consider taking me back? Just one more chance? I'm sorry about all the horrible things I said about you and your operating system. You were the best I ever had! MobileMe and I are finished!"

and then read the entire article. But remember yours truly as well. For those of you who have known me, I have always touted the fact that Apple is totally unprepared (deliberately so, just like MS, only with much, much more arrogance) for any kind of large customer base.

Yes, yes, they sold so many of this and so many of that. But isn't the world full of idiots accepting dictators, tormentors, mind-changing, hope-touting weaklings and people with 23% or less approval?

What would you expect such an inept world to do?

Of course, buy more and more of the useless.

In any case, the very few of you who know me and equally despise me might have heard me gloating for years about how ineffective Apple is at being able to sell their products to anyone who wants to put them to good use.

Voila!

Apple makes its case as a "better than MS" company (Yeah, Right! - after MS bailed you out) and finally sold copies of an mp3 player and a rather obvious phone design by the millions.

Don't forget the fact that they were neither the first at designing mp3 players nor were they original in even designing them..er, they stole from Creative's patents, desperately fought them and then settled.

1. Gmail has had outages. I experienced these.2. Yahoo! has had outages. I experienced these.3. The frikking computing cloud, whatever that mess is, had outages. Amazon, please books. That is all you can barely manage, even now, I dare-say, properly...4. Netflix has gone to hell, finally...

Who is laughing all the way to the bank?

The creator of the World's largest non-profit and his company.

No one said, MS is perfect, or is going to grow up enough to try and be half-way there, but it is amusing to imagine all the MS haters now wondering in gloom - "What Next".

Meanwhile in a dark alley in the streets of San Francisco, Yang, Jobs and Schmidt plot their next plan to fool the world.

And oh, if Apple cheats and fakes board meetings, "It's all good".

Hate Microsoft? Love Apple?

Be ready for buckets more of ridicule to come your way. The funniest thing is you paid a higher price to be laughed at!

Also Noted: Ever wonder why Apple calls it "MobileMe"? Its all about them, of course, and how they duped you suckers into buying one! Ha ha ha.

And your angry retort "Sent from my iPhone" will take forever to reach me...so don't bother. Uh! Can you hear me now?

Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.

Friday, August 08, 2008

I have no sympathy for people who dog a store for 36 hours to buy an expensive brick from a crazy control freak company/guy. There have been dozens of stories about how DemiGod Jobs prepares for months to fool, I mean market idiots with too much money on their hands.

I have also heard, through a personal friend and ex-apartment mate as to the kind of craziness that reigns project management at Apple.

So, today morning's story has not been all too surprising.

Now, Apple wants to control what its customers own and how they use it. Perfect! You get to be baby-sat (considering, if you spend $500 without knowing what you are buying, you lack any sense of maturity) for $500 + $$$ (AT&T) + $$$ (buying apps that can be unstably disabled any moment now....oops! somewhere in the world, someone's App just got yanked)!

I can imagine Steve Jobs as an incarnation of Uncle Scrooge on top of piles of gold coins, going he he he, clicking away, disabling everyone's apps while ruminating about a new SOB story to tell at commencement new year (Thank You Stanford, the world seemed like such a peaceful place before we heard 'poor' Jobs' life story).

If you are mad at me - consider this, my parents walked to school without slippers, and from where they started, they have achieved quite a bit (well countered and surpassed by the downside of producing me!) and they don't go bitch around about how bad life used to be.

If Stanford really wants bleeding stories for its commencements, it should select homeless people to tell the story. That way, at least we can pay attention to real problems.

In a way, to badly misquote Douglas Adams (who, unfortunately was an Apple fan, making our spiritual post-Earth relationship quite difficult. Adams, I hope you appreciate my view when you read this. For you uninformed, Facebook loving Earthlings, he has passed on, at least from this medium of existence):

Apple is "Mostly Harmless"!

Why?

Well, Microsoft is all pervading.

Apple only f***s up the rich, who, in a way, since I am not rich, deserve what they got (yanked out of their phones) !!!!!

Long live stupidity! It makes the rest of us feel so great....!

Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.

Alright, so August has me being a tad bit more cynical than usual (and you thought that it was impossible...). Now, I have nothing against the good people at Navilyst, but when Google Alerts started rolling in the press release through multiple websites, I clicked (or took the bait) hoping to see something new, some new competitor in some branch of medical devices and so on.

"A press release is a very useful tool..." - how many times did you read that in your "Tips for Small Business Success" or "Textbook for really expensive yet completely pointless MBA (expands to Much Bigger...) and so on.?

Yet, the press release is a useful tool, when generated appropriately. The key point to note, would be that the press release should also be of eventual use to the journalist, blogger and Google Alert fanatic, not just Navilyst and marketwatch.com .

Once I landed on the press release things got boring pretty fast:

Yes yes, it would have been terrible for the company to be called "Boston Scientific's old Fluid Management Unit sold to try and save company from a stock market debacle, Inc." (for one thing it would have been too long and too truthism-y), but one would hope for something beyond that:

"By 2011 the company should look very different than we do today--and that's exciting," - sorry Ron Sparks, being different from what you are in 2008 is below any bottomline expectation for 2011!

This is a sad case of people giving themselves stickers for just existing...or just a very weakly thought out statement for a press release.

After this, we come to our real world meanings of the several paragraphs in the press-release:

"We maintain the singular focus of a small, eager organization striving to improve patient care while collaborating with clinicians in the global marketplace"

equals "We are smaller than we used to be, in case you are completely incapable of surmising that yourself."

equals, "We assume you dont know what it means to be an established medical device company because you might be out there presuming that you think one of these is not necessary"

Oh come on, yes we agree, you are projecting yourself as a full entity rather than a broken limb (no sales, marketing, etc). Well, no investor is going to be interested in broken limb companies anyway...

"We maintain the singular focus of a small, eager organization striving to improve patient care while collaborating with clinicians in the global marketplace"

equals space filler,padding, icing, pepper dumped on pizza to 'spice' it up or as the elderly sage said, "Hmmm..."

"Navilyst Medical manufactures and markets a portfolio of fluid management and vascular access products used during some of the most frequent hospital procedures including angiography and angioplasty. Navilyst Medical's Fluid Management business, including the proprietary NAMIC(R) line of products enjoys a leading global market share. Navilyst Medical's vascular access products include devices designed to provide access to the blood stream for patients requiring intravenous antibiotics, nutrition, chemotherapy, blood sampling and hemodialysis. The company's PASV(R) Technology, with strong clinical data, is uniquely designed to automatically close after infusion, disconnection or aspiration, and remain closed during normal pressure fluctuations, reducing the risk of complications including catheter-related bloodstream infections. "

does not equal Press Release. May equal "About Navilyst" in press release or website.

A very good example of what you could put in your $1,500 case study on "10 things to NOT publish in a press release with only 10 things" that you can sell to future company executives.

Barely existing or surviving is not an achievement. We cannot hand each other stickers for this.

Yes, I repeat myself here (about the stickers, of course). Hey, if press releases can do this, why can't a blog do it? And this blog doesn't digest and spit out full article tests (without miserably trying to 'entertain' you first!)

Once upon a time you thought a press release talked about something significant, so that you could spend your time reading 20 - 25 press releases and glean some information that you could use. Nowadays, what with all the "Optimize your SEO" guides out there, the "press release" has become a sad victim of the "Restating the blindingly obvious and/or mundane, Inc." movement...

Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.

Friday, August 01, 2008

So, no one at Yahoo! checks their questions for spam or abuse or (pleas for) help, either?

Hmm...what a lovely waste of time.

And what the heck is up with the 7?

Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.

Moral of the Story: When writing articles (for pay) on Friday, please have a cup of coffee handy. Coffee, not beer!

Claimer: Views presented in this article probably or definitely allude to people real, unreal, imaginary, virtual and otherwise. Any harm or libel cast on people dead, alive or transient is either intentional or otherwise. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, however he refuses to take responsibility for said views and believes the use of "airquotes" to be a birthright. Claims not included in this claim are also claimed.